10 COMMANDMENTS

 I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. You shall
not make to thyself any graven thing; nor the likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters
under the earth. You shall not adore them nor serve them.
 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
 Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.
 Honor your father and your mother.
 You shall not kill.
 You shall not commit adultery.
 You shall not steal.
 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
 You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
 You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Explanation and its virtues:

God’s words say: “When God began the official work of His management plan, He set
down many regulations that were to be followed by man. These regulations were in
order to allow man to lead the normal life of man on earth, a normal life of man that is
inseparable from God and His guidance. God first told man how to make altars, how to
set up the altars. After that, He told man how to make offerings, and established how
man was to live—what he was to pay attention to in life, what he was to abide by, and
what he should and should not do. What God set out for man was all-embracing, and
with these customs, regulations, and principles He standardized people’s behavior,
guided their lives, guided their initiation to the laws of God, guided them to come before
the altar of God, guided them in having a life among all the things God had made for
man that was possessed of order, regularity, and moderation. God first used these
simple regulations and principles to set limits for man, so that on earth man would have
a normal life of worshiping God, would have the normal life of man; such is the specific
content of the beginning of His six-thousand-year management plan. The regulations
and rules cover a very broad content, they are the specifics of God’s guidance of
mankind during the Age of Law, they had to be accepted and obeyed by the people who
came before the Age of Law, they are a record of the work done by God during the Age
of Law, and they are proof of God’s leadership and guidance of all mankind”. rom God’s
words, we can see that early mankind only knew how to enjoy everything that God
provided, but what they didn’t know was that God had created heaven and earth and all
things, and that He had created mankind. Nor did they know how to worship God, and
they didn’t even have the most basic common knowledge about life. Just as a newborn
baby has no awareness whatsoever of anything that goes on in the world around it,
were it not for God’s work and guidance, mankind would simply have no idea how to live
properly on earth. Against this sort of backdrop and in light of mankind’s needs, God
used Moses to proclaim the Ten Commandments and the Law to the Israelites, and He
taught mankind and gave them explicit instructions on all aspects of life. In doing so, the
Israelites of those days finally came to have the common knowledge and rules by which
they should live and conduct themselves, they came to know how to interact with one
another and how to worship God in a way that accorded with His will, they came to
understand what sin was, what goodness, wickedness, beauty and ugliness were, to
know that such actions as burning, killing, robbing and plundering were sinful, and that
they were negative things, and they came to know that such actions as observing the
Law and commandments, keeping the Sabbath, making offerings to worship God, and
so on, accorded with God’s will, and were positive things. Under the guidance of the
Law and commandments issued by Jehovah, restrictions were placed on the behaviors
of the Israelites, they came to have clear standards and norms, and they began to live
their lives on earth in a proper, orderly manner. These were the results obtained with
the Israelites by the commandments and the Law and, because they observed the
commandments and the Law, the Israelites received God’s blessing.
Although the Ten Commandments and the Law were issued by God to the Israelites,
they still have a profound impact on us, the later generations of mankind. The
commandments and Law issued by God taught mankind how to survive and they
regulated mankind’s actions; they became the foundation and the criteria by which
mankind’s actions were measured to be sinful or sinless, and therefore the Ten
Commandments and the Law provided the basis for the formulation of legal
constitutions of later generations, and they lay the foundation for the betterment of legal
systems for later generations. Many modern legal provisions and judicial concepts are
formulated on the foundation of the Ten Commandments and God’s Law. For example,
formulations such as intentional homicide, rape, theft, defamation and corruption all find
their source in the Ten Commandments of “You shall not kill. You shall not commit
adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor
his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is your
neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:13–17). Were it not for God issuing these commandments and
His Law, then the whole of mankind would be just as the Israelites were back then, not
knowing how to live, not knowing the difference between right and wrong and without
any restrictions on our speech or actions. If that were so, then one can imagine that the
whole world would have become so chaotic that mankind could not possibly have been
able to develop until today, much less would today’s civilized society have been able to
come into being. From this, we can see that the issuing of God’s Law and
commandments not only had a profound impact on mankind’s legal systems, but they
also played a key role in the establishment and formation of the moral civilization and
the democratic system of human society. Nowadays, we have clear moral standards
and we are able to keep public order, accept the restrictions placed on us by the law,
and live stable, orderly lives on earth. These are all the results obtained by the
commandments issued by God in the early days of the Age of Law, and even more so
they are factual proof that God rules and guides all of mankind. This also allows us to
see more that God has a perfect understanding of our needs, and that He is so
responsible, so rigorous and so conscientious toward us! From the time God created
mankind, God has always guided and led us, providing us with everything we need to
survive, and issuing the Ten Commandments and the Law so that our actions may be
regulated and so that we may live better lives. Only because of this have we humans
been able to continue to live until this very day. The issuing of the Ten Commandments
and the Law completely embodied God’s love and salvation for us, and we humans
really cannot live without God’s guidance.